June 27, 2008

Just on the other side

I heard about this on Rush today (IC left talk radio on in the car and I couldn’t deal hearing the latest remix of that dumb million song) and AmSpec has the story:

“It would be generous to say we were stunned,” says a Republican House Judiciary Member, describing his response when Congressman and Obama Superdelegate William Delahunt (MA-10) yesterday asked the vice president’s chief of staff David Addington about water boarding of terrorists. Addington declined to comment, citing President Bush’s refusal to discuss techniques used to attain vital intelligence, and added that another reason not to respond was that Al Qaeda is probably watching.

Congressman Delahunt’s response: “I’m glad they finally have a chance to see you.” (Emphasis added.)

But the House Republican and Judiciary member was not so stunned to notice that no Republican rose to defend Addington, or to call out Delahunt for essentially inviting al Qaeda to impart physical harm to a senior member of the Bush Administration. “It was shameful that we didn’t do anything. I can’t explain it,” says the GOP member.

Delahunt claims he said that he was glad to finally have a chance to see Addington. Except Rush played the clip and that’s clearly not what he said.

I can’t wait for the clutching of the pearls and to see the fainting couches retrieved from storage. Oh, the horrors. Clearly, the leftofascists and the islamoterrofascioboogeymen are in league to get David Addington. He is, after all, the King of Clubs in the al Qaeda “Most Wanted” novelty deck. Now that the dhimmocratiolibtardofascioappeasers have outed him on national television, Mr. Addington can no longer trust in the safety of his falafel and shawarma. I just hope that whatever portion of the money that I’ve given to the Obama campaign that gets re-routed to the terrorists (fifth column!) gets us a really good one who can use the C-Span screenshots and Mr. Delahunt’s clear encouragement to muster the will to hate Mr. Addington for his freedoms as quickly as possible. Because, you know, Mr. Addington is the only thing standing at present between the Islamofascists and the sharia law I’m so ready to appease them by accepting.
I’ve always been curious to see what Maxim magazine would look like under the American Taliban…

Hey BG,
Ya done? Because those of us who actually believe that we have armed, dangerous men out there try to kill us would like to point that once you’re done being sanctimonious a sitting Congress critter just expressed his joy that our _enemies_ finally got to see the face of one of our _friendlies_.
I know they probably didn’t cover that for you in sarcasm class, but generally when someone expresses joy that AQ has finally got to see a member of our government that’s a _bad_ thing. So when you get a moment to get off your partisan soap box, ponder what it means for our Republic when our elected officials can’t even subsume their partisan hatred of the current administration enough to not make comments like, “I’m so happy the enemy has got to see you so they now know what you look like and can kill you.”
I’m sure, should we look up in a couple of months/years and Mr. Addington has been killed, you’ll be quick to post up here, “Whoa, I was a total and complete dumba** and maybe your guys’ p*ssed off response was somewhat justified. My bad, time for me to go back under my bridge.” That, however, would probably take intestinal fortitude or the ability to string coherent logic streams together–I won’t be holding my breath.
This partisan sh*t (from _BOTH_ sides) has to stop. We are in a war against people who want to kill us. Fecklessness and stupidity is not limited to either party, and if your first response to this is “Typical Dem…” then I’m afraid you’re almost as wrong as BG is. But y’all keep on keeping on, and I’m sure when AQ blasts a city and your fellow sheeple vote all their Constitutional protections away it will really matter whether the idiocy is begun by a D or an R.

Posted by: James at June 28, 2008 at 10:11 am

BG, you act as though conservatives are the boy who cried wolf when actually the wolf has already taken off an arm and is going for the throat. Islamofascists really do want to kill us, they prove this by well, killing us, at every opportunity. I know it feels better to pretend otherwise but lucky for you there are people like David Addington who take the threat seriously and protect us accordingly. It’s a problem, though, when our elected officials get in his way and wish him harm.

Posted by: Karol at June 28, 2008 at 1:40 pm

I just find it absolutely absurd that Delahunt’s (dumbass) joke gets this sort of play. I think it was a ridiculously idiotic thing to say, and his backtrack was even dumber, but let’s not pretend that Delahunt pointing at Addington is going to have any real world effect on what al Qaeda may end up doing in the future. That’s the implausible leap that it takes to get yourself worked up that Delahunt’s idiot statement matters in some way.
James – even terrorists know how to use the Google. Delahunt didn’t out a covert agent here. Let’s keep that in perspective. “Finally got to see the face of one of our friendlies?” That’s Delahunt’s fault now? Addington was a complete unknown prior to his testimony? No pictures existed, no documentation showing his relationship to the policy that the committee was discussing? Unless you truly believe that Delahunt is signaling the next al Qaeda strike, then let’s try to keep this in perspective.
And Karol, “islamofascists” may want to kill us, but that doesn’t mean Delahunt can’t disagree with Addington in a committee hearing and get upset at his obstinance and contempt for the authority of Congress. The “joke” was clearly stupid (and the backtrack worse), but no one got “outed” here. I object, simply, to the first commenter’s idiotic, “More proof that the only support the Al Queda have in the world is the media and the Democrats.” That would be the root of the sarcasm.

What’s new about this?
Democrats went nuts 8 years ago and they haven’t recovered their civility or their maturity since.
The implication was that Mr. Delahunt would like to see Mr. Addington murdered by terrorists. In comparison, the most Mr. Addington can be accused of is endorsing waterboarding if necessary to obtain intelligence needed to save the lives of people like Mr. Delahunt.

Posted by: AST at June 28, 2008 at 9:00 pm

If I were one of the other congressmen in that room, I would have invited Mr. Delahunt join me outside.
But then, if there, I would have been fighting the absurdity of even discussing this issue in front of any media in the first place. This debate, if it must happen, should be completely closed-door. Yeah – let’s show the enemy how many among us have very strong doubts about what we’re doing, and blame the rest of us when the enemy continues to torture our guys.
They torture because they’re animals.
We torture because they’re animals.

Posted by: michael parker at June 29, 2008 at 8:53 am

BG, I don’t get the “joke”. Can you explain the joke? Because I would like to laugh. I like funny. I don’t see the funny here. I don’t even see the nodding your head kind of joke. I see no humor at all. If it exists, please point it out to me. A bad joke is something that’s supposed to be funny but actually isn’t. In what way was that even supposed to be funny?
It’s not a joke, it wasn’t a joke, he said what he meant. THAT’S why it’s getting this kind of play. We saw something in one of our Congressmen which we found vile. Us wacky “neo” conservatives are just wondering why the left isn’t as disgusted.

Who called you a neo anything?
And I’m willing to give pretty much any fellow human being – Michael Reagan included – the benefit of the doubt when they seemingly explicitly “wish death” on someone else. By “joke” I mean “off the cuff ‘quip’ at the end of a back and forth where frustrations increased to the point where an attempt at a blithe retort turned into an ill-thought out flippant remark.” That’s what it was. It was a dumbass fucking thing to say as frustrations got more amplified, but there’s not a reasonable person on the planet who could unpack this to believe “Delahunt wants Addington dead and is willing to put a bullseye on his back to get the job done.”
Unless, of course, there’s political mileage to pick up out of something like this. Then, we clearly have a different definition of “reasonable.”

Forget fat elphants and asses for a moment…
Again no subway series posts???
Can we give the last ever subway series games in both Shea and Yankee stadiums more attention than Lil Wayne’s shitty albums?
Give the people what they want!(or just me)

Didn’t hear this clamour when Valerie Plame had her cover blown. And that was proper cover, not this supposed AQ can’t see me sort of thing.
Bad thing to say, but doing torture, redefining what torture is in order to do it, and then not having the courage to admit it, far worse. Not being a US citizen or resident, I have no comment to make re your constitution.

Posted by: bryan at June 30, 2008 at 9:43 am

Uh, bryan, Valerie Plame was hardly as “covert” as she claimed. Plenty of people in D.C. knew who she was. She was no longer on covert assignments and didn’t appear to be headed for a new one anytime soon. She drove to work every day, hardly disguised or trying to keep a low profile.
But in fact, there was a bigger outcry than this when Plame was “outed.” Democrats got it plastered it all over the mainstream media for months. The same can hardly be said now for Republicans.

Perry, people in DC were not the people to worry about, so her driving to work is not relevant. Being deliberately obtuse does not disguise the fact that nobody on sites like this one was outraged that the public announcement of her job was a very bad thing indeed, hence the investigations

Posted by: bryan at July 2, 2008 at 5:03 am

“people in DC were not the people to worry about”
That’s not the point. The point was that by July 2003, she was well-known in public life. She was back at a desk job, thus hardly covert by the time she was supposedly “outed.” Now, she was indeed a covert operative for a good while, including when she first met Wilson. She outed herself to him while they were still dating — which is a goddamn idiotic thing for an operative to do. How did she know she could trust him? Romance is an old ploy in the intelligence community.
The mere possibility of nabbing Karl Rove (the “mastermind” behind Bush’s unexpectedly successful presidential campaigns) made liberals rabid. But they couldn’t pin anything on Rove, and Scooter Libby was just a scapegoat. In the end, they could only get him on “false statements” and “perjury,” which are questionable. There was nothing to indicate he outed Plame, but since then we know who’s done it: Dick Armitage, who’s now liked by the American left for his opposition to the Bush Administration. So do you think he’ll ever be castigated in the mainstream media, let alone charged? Don’t hold your breath.

I would imagine that, like any good secret agent, Plame would’ve vetted Wilson (or her office would’ve done) before any job talk occurred.
The rest of what you said doesn’t deal with what I said about the lack of outrage about this (illegal?) outing.

Posted by: bryan at July 3, 2008 at 7:22 am

“like any good secret agent” hardly means discovering the truth; it also means a strong likelihood of being deceived. It’s happened on both sides: no matter how carefully you check someone out, the cover could be perfectly constructed and fool anyone. Or the person may have such a good reputation that it’s “unthinkable” for the person to be a traitor. Beyond the suspicions of the time, we didn’t know definitively about Alger Hiss for decades.
The “other” side didn’t realize Plame was the handler for several spies, didn’t you know? They thought she was an energy trader or whatever her current story was. For all Plame knew, the “Wilson” she was falling in love with could have been another spy with an excellent cover. But she let emotion rise above the job, which makes her a poor spy.
The rest of what I said is to debunk the myth, which you’re helping spread, that Plame was somehow “outed.”

I’ll add, in case you still can’t connect the dots, there was no reason for “outrage” over Plame being outed because…she was already outed.
Yet there was outrage, evening after evening on our TV news, and liberal blogs lit up with talk of “Rove did it!” I had a co-worker so rabidly anti-Rove who flatly declared, “I don’t care if Rove did it or not, he should go to jail!”
On the other hand, outrage over this thing with Delahunt will hardly get any mainstream press.

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